by Eden Bradley
“You couldn’t even see anything in those pictures.”
“I could see, Brenna.”
She continued to trace the markings. “Will you tell me what happened? What happened with your ghost?”
“Are you sure you’re ready to hear a ghost story?”
She laid down on the floor next to him, on her side. “I need to know.”
He turned onto his side to face her as well. “I was just shy of six years old when I’d first tried to explain to my parents, both professors at the local university, that I’d been seeing ghosts and spirits for as long as I could remember.”
“My mother would’ve loved it if I’d told her that,” Brenna murmured.
“Mine weren’t as understanding.” At first, his parents thought he had a big imagination and a lot of invisible friends. When he stubbornly set about proving to them that he was really seeing things, he’d started with his father’s old Polaroid camera, shooting at the images. “When I realized that I’d captured the ghosts on film, my urge to share the findings faded. So I told my parents that I liked taking pictures, spent my days honing my photography skills and combining that with capturing ghosts.”
“You really weren’t scared of them?”
“Were you scared when your mom saw ghosts? When she talked to them?”
“No. But what you’re describing is much different. If I could actually see the ghost that’s haunting me…well, let’s just say I’d rather not go there.”
He didn’t bother to remind her that she’d see Arlen soon enough, once he developed his pictures. “I grew up seeing ghosts. I was never scared of them—not until I was seventeen.” He drew a deep breath and Brenna reached out, touched a flattened palm to his still-bare chest and held it there, and yeah, that was nice. Calming.
“I’d been able to see the spirits without the aid of the camera’s lens until that point. Until the spirit that lived in my closet proved to be malevolent.”
He could still hear the voice echoing in his head.
Hex, can you come let me out to play?
Once the sun went down, Hex refused to open his closet. The spirit named Malachi seemed friendly enough during the day, manifested as a boy around Hex’s own age, but there was always a sense of unease around the spirit that Hex was sensitive to. It seemed as if the other spirits stayed away until Malachi was securely locked up.
But one night, Hex’s mother had mistakenly opened the closet door while Hex slept. “She was probably snooping, looking for things that all mothers of teenage boys look for—sex, drugs and alcohol.”
He’d awakened to Malachi standing over his bed.
Hex, I’ve come out to play…
“I remember screaming, but no sound came out. Malachi touched me, and then it was like I was completely out of control, or falling into the deepest pit and still not hitting bottom.
“And while I was frozen, I saw Malachi’s life—he wasn’t a young boy, but a fully grown man who’d killed himself in prison.”
A man who wanted to take over Hex’s body and mind and find a new life through him.
“From that day on, I’ve only been able to see ghosts through the lens of a camera.”
From that day, no ghost had ever gotten all the way in and been able to stay there—partly because of his strength of mind. And then he’d taken additional steps, dangerous steps, to make sure it would truly never happen.
He’d heard a rumor about a tribe that lived in peace among ghosts that regularly made their presence known—a tribe that held its ancestors’ spirits on the earthbound plane for the first year after their death, in order to make their passing transition easier for everyone. The tribe had discovered a way to live among the ghosts but not become possessed by them, which was something angry ghosts often tried.
“You went to the Amazon Basin all by yourself?” she asked.
“Fear and need can do strange things to a man. To a woman too, I’m guessing.” But still, the nightmare of what had happened to him when he’d been unprotected was fresh, always just below the surface and far too easily scratched.
He’d left the tribe after six months, had refused college in favor of traveling the world with his camera. Within a year, he’d already made a name for himself in both the mainstream photography world and the underground paranormal one.
ACRO tapped him quickly. They’d trained him thoroughly and sent him off to wander the world.
“I still have to fight the ghosts myself,” he explained. “It still takes a strong mind. But seeing ghosts is my job. My gift.”
“Sounds more like a curse to me. If I need to, I’ll go get those markings done. Can you take me?”
“You don’t need them. Arlen wants you for different reasons.”
“Arlen? That’s the ghost’s name?”
“Yes. And I’ve got to get those pictures developed.” He started to sit up and she helped him. He was weak, drained from Arlen’s touch, lucky he was functioning. He’d seen people who remained semi-comatose for hours after a touch, who’d been unable to explain what they were going through.
He needed some food, some sugar, anything to keep him up and running.
Soon it would be dawn and the natural light would filter in through the windows and then it would get even hotter in the old house. He was intensely aware that he was still naked, and nothing but a cold shower or being inside of her was going to help matters.
And she was staring, until he reached for his jeans, and yanked them on roughly.
He could see her blush in the dim light. “Having sex with me must have been a real nightmare for you,” Brenna said. “Which is pretty typical of the way my life’s going right now.”
“It wasn’t a nightmare, Brenna. Not even close.”
Somewhere upstairs, a door slammed, as if Arlen was telling them that neither of them had heard the last word on the matter.
Exhausted but unable to sleep on an empty stomach, Brenna sat in the kitchen, twirling her fork in a bowl full of ramen noodles. She’d loved the things since she was a kid, when her mom had barely been able to make ends meet and had fed them to Brenna for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She hadn’t eaten them since she was nine, when her mom had figured out how to make money off her psychic gift, opening a shop where she’d read palms and tarot cards, scratching out a meager living as a fortune-teller and psychic medium.
Funny how hard times brought a person right back to the most vulnerable and familiar places in their life.
She sucked a single noodle into her mouth and wondered what was taking Hex so long. He was using her makeshift darkroom in one of the spare bedrooms to develop the photos he’d taken, and though she tried not to get her hopes up, she couldn’t help but buzz with a tingle of optimism. If anyone could help her, it was him.
The tribe called me the ghost king.
She forced her brain to take her into that scenario, to a jungle full of mystical people and magic. He’d been young, probably frightened and desperate. She knew how that felt, and as he’d talked about it, she’d wanted to pull him into her arms and just hold him.
But she knew too well that hugs didn’t erase the past, and besides, he hadn’t seemed very receptive. Heck, she had no doubt he regretted telling her anything at all.
The bowl of carbs she never would have eaten just a few months ago grew cold as she listened for his footsteps upstairs, or for the ghost—Arlen—to slam something else around. The earthbound spirit, as her mom had called entities that hadn’t crossed over, had been in a snit ever since Hex and Brenna had had sex.
Sex to keep Arlen away.
Yeah, some dark side of her was still bitter about that, but the reasonable, less selfish side of her knew Hex had done what he needed to do. The battle for the control of his body had been intense, and she could see that, now that she knew what had been happening.
How could he stand it? How could he stand to have another person inside him?
The memory of having Hex inside her twisted into a t
ight knot of pleasure. The sex had been good. Amazing. And despite Hex’s denials, she couldn’t help but think it had happened only because of Arlen.
“You bastard,” she ground out.
“I guess you don’t want to see the photos, then?”
Hex stood in the kitchen entrance, one big shoulder casually braced against the door frame, his expression unreadable, his eyes sharp, focused, unwavering as he looked at her. Working in a darkroom agreed with him, and a slow burn started in her belly at the utter masculinity he radiated.
“Sorry.” She resisted the urge to play with her hair—another nervous habit she’d thought she’d left behind years ago. Mainly because it was hell on split ends and breakage. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
He nodded like he got that, and yeah, she supposed he did. He tossed the pics on the table, scattering them. “Got anything sweet? My blood sugar’s bottomed out.”
Great. As if seeing her house nearly bare of furnishings wasn’t bad enough, now he would discover her lack of pretty much anything edible. “I have Popsicles. Help yourself. Just not the blue ones.”
“Your favorite?”
Heat seared her cheeks. “Guess that sounds kinda selfish.”
He shrugged. “You’re an only child. It happens.”
She watched him open the freezer door, amazed that he’d written off her behavior as something other than being a spoiled, famous party girl. “Sorry I don’t have more to offer you. I haven’t had time to shop,” she lied, though he had to at least suspect the truth.
“No problem.” Hex closed the freezer and plopped down at the table—with a blue Popsicle.
Pretending not to notice, she grabbed the nearest black-and-white photo. The air whooshed from her lungs and suddenly she didn’t care if he ate every one of her favorite ice pops. “Oh, my God, you’re a genius. I’m not blurry!”
“Neither is Arlen.”
The milky, nearly transparent figure of a man lurked behind the chaise, peering into the camera, a smirk on his handsome face. “Well, at least he’s good-looking.”
“Yeah, that’s the important part of all this. The ghost should look as great as you do in pictures.” Hex tore off the Popsicle wrapper.
She huffed. “I only meant that if I had to be haunted, at least he isn’t creepy and gross, with his skin falling off or some crap.”
She shuffled through the rest of the photos, which were all the same. Clear. Blessedly clear. Sure, there was a ghost in every one of them, but she didn’t care. Thanks to the wonderful world of technology, he could be easily removed.
“These make me look so thin. And since the camera adds ten pounds…”
“The camera doesn’t lie, Brenna.”
“Ever?”
“Ever.”
“Well, that’s what imaging technicians are for.” She held one shot close, still amazed at the clarity. “I don’t know how to thank you, Hex. I can’t believe this. You’ve done it!”
He drew the ice pop out of his mouth and shook his head. “I haven’t done anything. You won’t show up in any other photographer’s photos.”
Her stomach bottomed out. “What? Why not? Are you sure?”
The way he combed his fingers through his hair told her he was almost as frustrated as she was. “Whatever Arlen is doing to blur your pictures doesn’t allow him to show up on your average photographer’s film, but since I can capture him, you’re captured too.”
If she hadn’t been sitting, her knees would have buckled. This couldn’t be happening. “Wait…I’m clear in your pictures. So you could come work for me. You can be my personal photographer. Arlen can be taken out of the photos. No problem.”
“Do I have any say in this?”
“Of course you do. You can pretty much name your price with any company I model for. And, obviously, you’ll have to move, but—”
“No.”
She blinked. “No? No what?”
“All of it. What makes you think I’d want to leave New Orleans?”
That stumped her. Who would willingly live in the dank, hot bowels of Louisiana when they could live somewhere that teemed with life and sparkled with light twenty-four seven? “Well, I guess you could always just fly out for jobs…”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “Did it occur to you that maybe, just maybe, I don’t want to be your little camera-spank-boy? That maybe I don’t want to drop everything and follow you around like a stray puppy just so you can have your glitzy life back?”
How dare he? How dare he…what? Want a life for himself that didn’t orbit around her? Humiliation crawled up her spine. God, what a self-centered bitch she was. And it had nothing to do with being an only child. Her mother had once told her that Brenna had felt a sense of entitlement from the day she was born, and it had only grown worse once she was on her own and being fawned over by designers and photographers and everyone else around her.
“I’m sorry.” She pushed aside her bowl of now-cold noodles, her stomach rebelling. “It’s just that you’re all I have right now.” He was all that stood between her and the streets. She had no job skills, hadn’t done well in high school and had never been able to act. There was a reason her thief of a manager had rarely sent her on movie casting calls. She was a pretty face, and that’s all.
“It’s okay.” He bit the top off his Popsicle—the man must have no nerves in his teeth. As he drew the blue ice away, she noticed a slight tremor in his hand.
“Are you all right?”
“Takes a while to get rid of the shakes after a near possession.”
“Does it happen often?”
“No.”
He didn’t offer any more in the way of explanation, and she didn’t push, merely watched him bite off another inch of Popsicle as juice ran down the sides and onto his fingers. Long, sexy, tapered fingers. Male hands had always fascinated her…calloused, rough ones appealed to the female animal in her, made her see the male form hard at work, muscles flexing, sweat gleaming on tan skin. Smooth, soft ones brought to mind luxurious, pampered fantasies of those hands gliding like velvet over her body.
Hex’s hands were a perfect combination of the two—smooth yet strong, lightly calloused, as though he had done his share of physical work when he wasn’t holding a camera. And she knew very well how they felt on her skin.
“You’re staring at me.” His voice was gravelly, like he had heard her thoughts.
“Because you aren’t eating that right.”
He cocked a tawny eyebrow. “There’s a wrong way and a right way?”
“Depends on where you are, sugar,” she drawled in a sultry Southern accent she’d put away a long time ago. “You can take your sweet time if you’re a Yank eating one in the frozen wastelands of Minnesota, but down here where it’s hot, you have to hone your technique.”
A cocky smile turned up one side of his mouth, just enough to make her libido flutter with new life. “Why don’t you show me?” He held out the Popsicle, his voice thick with sensual challenge that surprised them both, if the way his eyes widened was any indication.
The air grew heavy, charged with sexual tension that had sprung up from nowhere. “Is the ghost—?”
“Arlen isn’t here.” He leaned closer. “This is between us.”
Never had anyone affected her like Hex did, the way just looking at him made her blood run hot, her skin grow tight and her sex throb with need. She couldn’t think of a single reason she should want him or why she should encourage him to want her—other than getting a good ego boost—and though this was, no doubt, a huge mistake, she grasped his hand in hers and brought the column of ice to her lips.
“The trick is, you don’t concentrate on the tip, though you do need to get things started.” She swirled her tongue around the top, keeping her gaze locked on his. “Then you lick the sides to catch the trickle of juice.” When she drew her tongue down the cold length, blue raspberry flavor exploded on her taste buds, and she moaned with pleasure.
Hex’s gaze darkened as he followed the motion of her tongue. “Okay,” he breathed. “I get it.”
She gave him a slow, teasing smile. “I’m not done. Not even close. See, once the sides are cleaned up, you slide the flat of your tongue up to the tip, suck and nibble just a little…” She did as she’d described, and she thought Hex’s breath hitched. “Then drag your mouth back down, because see how the base is starting to drip? Must lick the base very carefully. That’s the most important part.”
He watched as she lapped the sticky sweet drops from the bottom of the Popsicle, taking each one onto her tongue and swallowing before taking the next. The cool liquid felt good sliding down her throat, but it did nothing to ease the burn that had started to build between her thighs.
“It seems that your way of eating an ice pop is a lot slower than mine.” His voice was dark and deep and so rough it vibrated in all the right places.
“Maybe.” She took one of his knuckles into her mouth to suck the sweet syrup off his skin, and his sexy-as-hell lips parted in a silent gasp. “But my way is all about making it last and taking the most pleasure. That’s the way Southerners do everything, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I noticed.” He sucked air between clenched teeth when she flicked her tongue over the sensitive webbing between his fingers. “Oh, yeah, I definitely noticed.”
“There are times when fast is good, though.”
“Yeah?”
Holding his gaze, she closed her entire mouth over what remained of the Popsicle. With firm suction, she pulled the ice free of the stick.
Hex made a funny strangled sound.
The cold numbed her mouth, slid down her throat and felt so damned good because she’d gone hotter than Jackson Square’s iron fence in August. Sighing with pleasure, she wrenched the stick from Hex’s tight grip and took it to the garbage can next to the sink.
She didn’t hear him move, but she felt his hands on her hips and his body pressed against her back. The hard, thick length of his erection ground into her ass.
